Actual, kind of famous film professionals have gotten furious at me for trying to explain 60i video to them. They think they know but don't.

"Surely I, a veteran of the industry for 35 years, knows that video does not display 60 frames per second, you amateur child."

"There aren't sixty images!" they say. "It's 30 FRAMES per second, everyone knows that! What is interlacing?! The difference between video and film is ghosts."

I'm 36 and I've been working with video literally my whole life, and this is a great metaphor for how relatively easy it was to get work in film (or otherwise) in the 80s/90s without any technical knowledge at all, and then keep on doing it.

Similar things have happened a couple times, where older people get furious at me, as I'm trying to explain something very basic about film and video formats.

I think my generation was the first who had to constantly be teaching our parents how to use computers and electronics, and then watch them get hired to do that.

A lot more is expected of someone my age or younger. We had to know tech. And we weren't given jobs because of it. I edit and restore video quite brilliantly as a hobby, and have done so for a long time. And only as a hobby, rarely paid for it.

It would have been easy for me to get work if I were a few years older and knew nothing.

Told you this is a rude post.

I would say I'm behind the times now. Tech moves fast and I'm no longer at the cutting edge of it. I don't mind dealing with older tech and formats and making it all work. Or working with 10 year old software.

Funny how that works. We all get older.

The stuff I do while just messing around on an average day now would have been unimaginably high tech when I first started messing around with video.

That thought makes me smile.

If you could go back in time to the VHS boom of the 80s, you could make millions making films for theaters and video on tech which costs almost nothing now.

But that's how tech works. It moves on and becomes commonplace. Storytelling doesn't.

Anything I can do with video and CGI feels quite ordinary to me, but sometimes people are impressed/have no idea how it was done. Feels good. Regardless it's about telling the story.

A Google employee wrote a 10 page manifesto against hiring women, which got a lot of attention on social media. He was then fired.

A friend of mine - a woman and a filmmaker - read it and thought it was fine. Some men commenting on the post started dropping some alt-right buzzwords and agreeing suspiciously loudly.

I felt I had to say something, even knowing that it would be mansplaining. I wound up saying way too much, but here it is. I've included her response, and that of others.

KG: "I just read this Google manifesto. I don't know when it became wrong to acknowledge that men and women are different, why we have to be blind to differences, but it is clear that the writer of the manifesto asks that we stop being blindly outraged and be allowed to think for ourselves. It's a little insane that this kind of thought is no longer allowed. You would think this writer killed ten thousand babies by eating them alive. I don't see any problem with the manifesto. We are allowed to think about differences and still be inclusive. He is advocating for thought!"

SN: "I think the problem is that he is intimating that female engineers are not suited to do their job. If you feel that fifty percent of your co employees can't do their job they may not want to work with you which kind of limits your usefulness to your job."

KG: "He kind of goes through great lengths to say that he's not saying that. Some blanket generalizations seem incorrect, but he goes through great lengths to say they are generalizations, do not apply to individuals, things are not so black and white, he values diversity but asks that we allowed to think and not be blinded by quick emotions."

GG: I haven't read the Google manifesto but you're the first person I've seen outside the alt-Right who has defended it. The writer, Damore, has retreated into the Alt Right world now anyway. His first interview after being fired was with extremist douchebag Stefan Mol*n**x. Stefan's audience include a lot of neo nazis, as you can see from comments like these -- and his profile picture is by pro-Trump cartoonist and lunatic Ben G*rr*s*n.

So, even if Damore was being polite in his Google manifesto -- which -- sending co-workers a pro-white-male manifesto is scary stuff regardless -- he is now going to be swimming in that bigoted alt-Right world from now on, with no such politeness.

KG: "sorry dude, but if you can't even read ten pages to see what he wrote before calling him an alt-Right pro white male etc. you are part of the problem."

GG:But Google's lack of diversity is a problem. Not the opposite of that.

And Damore's job is now just to complain and be funded by the alt Right. The first interviews he's done were with alt-right, white supremacist, bigoted sources and that's also who's funding him now.

That may have been his plan? There's money in this stuff.

KG: "Sorry, but is this open to discussion. Can anyone think about why there is a problem? Or is this off the table? Thought police - you can't even mention a thought, say that you could be wrong and are willing to discuss all points of this thought, and then get fired and called a Nazi. Sounds like 1984 to me. He is a thoughtcriminal, this is a thoughtcrime! The most evil type of crime."

GG:Okay, I've read it now and I stand by what I've said.

The guy does seem educated, and can argue his point, but his point is essentially bigoted pseudoscience -- or pseudoscience to defend bigotry. He is arguing that Google become more right wing generally also, which is not what it needs.

His arguments that women are "neurotic" and prone to "anxiety" and so it's fine that they're underrepresented in the tech industry, and that Conservative Right Wingers are the ones actually facing discrimination from "Marxist" communists ..... It's all stuff that I would disagree with and the exact opposite of what the tech industry needs, and what our world needs.

He's phrasing it intelligently, but he's just coming up with excuses for white male supremacy -- which we've had enough of these past few centuries.

He's certainly not insane, and wants the right and left to come to some sort of compromise, but it all shows a real preference on his part for white male supremacy etc -- and wants to move things in the wrong direction when we're already very compromised in this country. We could use more diversity and opportunity for women there rather than finding ways to phrase an argument against all that.

So this is the general problem with the right-wing and with centrism even, to begin with. It's not unique to him, but it's not a point of view that's worth anything to anyone. Compromising further, in favor of guys like him, isn't a good move.

I also wouldn't believe a guy who says "I'm not racist/sexist, but ..." and then says something racist/sexist. If he says he's biased against hiring you and feels the status quo should never be "diverse," believe him the first time. Those biases will show if a guy like that is involved in the hiring process - which would explain the maleness of the tech industry generally.

You could say the same about Hollywood really -- or most industries. Success in general is weighted toward white wealthy men and we do need a special push to achieve more equality -- and that means not being as freaked out by the concept of equality as this guy is.

KG: "Opinion, people are allowed to think that there is a problem when trying to make numbers equal when people vary. Why aren't we pushing for equality in the most dangerous jobs? Is it perhaps that women don't want to work those jobs? Are women even allowed to make that choice? It screws up the diversity numbers if they do. We won't ever be equal! Scary."

GG: Women should have a choice of what they want to do. They aren't being forced into these industries against their will. The exact opposite is happening -- women (and others who don't fit a certain mold) are being gatekept out of the tech industry and out of Hollywood, beyond any measurable margin of error.

This is -- as he says -- a basic difference between the beliefs of the left and right. A lefty is seeking to push toward true equality, and he's making excuses for why it isn't so.

Working at Google is not dangerous, and arguing against diversity in an industry and company where a lot of the coders are Asian is pretty sad for this guy. Coding was also considered a woman's work until it became more profitable in the 80s, so where were the biological differences then? He's bringing up masculine fantasies of being a firefighter as an argument for why "neurotic," "anxious" women can't code at Google. He's not a firefighter either.

Women can make their own choices and I know that a lot of women would want to be making this guy's salary writing code and whatnot. It's not actually dangerous work --!

If we're talking about generally physical differences between men and women, this white collar sort of Google office work is a place where that would never come into play. There's no heavy lifting, etc.

He feels he needs to discourage that because there's actually no physical justification against a woman doing white collar work.

KG: "I've worked in male dominated industries my whole career. You know why my dad has more men in construction than women? Because more men are available for the job. But did he treat me like I'm not capable of the job. No way. So what that there are only 30% women in construction. The people who are there want to be there. Did I get funny looks sometimes? Sure, but that's what happens when you play with expectations. I'm a filmmaker now, and there are a lot of men in the industry. Do these men work hard? Yes. Are they talented? Yes. Was it easy for them? No. But you know, art is cool. I'm going make a product people like, or they don't. And I'm judged by that art, not that I'm a woman. Being a woman gets me points in today's society. I like that. But my art better be top level if you compare me to the top level. I don't want to make garbage and have people pretend I'm Spielberg (barf *Wonder Woman* barf). I'm only Spielberg level good if my art is that level. Even though he's a man and I'm a woman. That's equality."

GG: You're a filmmaker, not a firefighter or a weightlifter or a builder. There is absolutely nothing physically standing in your way of success in Hollywood except for the beliefs of a man like this dude who thinks you're too "neurotic" and "anxious" and shit.

These industries -- which aren't built around upper arm strength or whatnot -- are very male dominated and this guy's finding excuses for it. I'm not gonna give him a trophy for that. But the neo nazis will.

People don't pretend to like films for the sake of diversity. If someone dislikes a film, they say so!

KG: thank goodness!

GG:So less talented people succeeding because of diversity is not really something that happens.

The exact opposite seems to happen -- we see a lot of rich white guys with famous last names promoted above their station, or up to their knees.

And the only ones I see making garbage but still considered to be on Steven Spielberg's level are guys like Michael Bay.

You disliked Wonder Woman, but considering the dreck that Zack Snyder had turned in, with previous films, and what she was handed to work with, I felt Patty Jenkins pulled off a miracle, in directing terms. There's a ton of talent there, and in her previous film.

It's bizarre that she wasn't allowed to make another big studio picture in all the years inbetween those two big hits.

How many dumb Michael Bay movies fit into those years?

I wouldn't want you, as a director, to be denied a job because of a guy like this Google guy.

KG: how much money did those dumb Michael Bay movies make? I like that our industry is about making money as well as art. I am not worried about being denied a job because people can think and try to talk something out

GG:A good version of any of those films would have done just as well, or better.

First principles here, which I think you'll agree with, is that if a woman is more qualified than a man, applying for the same position, the woman should be hired.

We shouldn't make excuses for not having hired the woman based on all women supposedly being more "neurotic" and "anxious." He might not be phrasing it like "women be crazy" but that's the gist.

KG: Anyone more qualified for the job should get the job. Yes, of course. It's lame and stupid that he thinks women are neurotic and anxious.

GG:Second principles here - there's a lot of competition for every job. Google isn't going off to the jungle or to Mars or something to find "diverse" candidates. Women and "minorities" are already applying to these jobs. There is a bias against women in tech, and a lot of the women applying really are more qualified because they've had to push harder.

The argument against diversity is always phrased like employers are going out to stupidland to find someone, anyone, who isn't qualified but isn't Straight/White/Male/etc. Whether they want the job or not.

Not true -- people from all walks of life are applying to these jobs. They want them.

Whether you liked Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman or not, she is qualified, more so than her peers. Monster was done on the cheap. It was hugely profitable and acclaimed and won an Oscar. Her next film was hugely critically acclaimed and broke all box office records for a film directed by a woman.

Inbetween those films she was not allowed to work for eight years -- I know it's a tough industry but it's hard to argue that would have happened to a man who had the same qualifications/success.

(Look at the talented indie no-names who are now directing Star Wars and Marvel films -- Jenkins was more qualified objectively -- and look at all the crap DC films Zack Snyder and David Goyer have been allowed to keep on making until now.)

This guy is arguing that Google not hiring women is natural and fine, because they're not firefighters. I've known women firefighters, but his notion of gender is all very caught up in a notion of powerful, heroic masculinity which has nothing to do with whether you can use a computer or not -- or direct a film for that matter.

There's no physical differences here keeping a woman from typing, or telling actors what to do.

The problem is the attitude within the industry, which this guy represents.

He's coming up with excuses for why Google diversity efforts need to end. Meanwhile Google spent, what, 236 million on these efforts and it didn't change anything about the structure of the company? So there's lots of guys like this guy at Google.

If hiring managers at Google agree with this guy's manifesto, it explains who they are and aren't hiring.

(Meanwhile the most profitable film of the year was Get Out. Universally critically acclaimed, an extremely sharp and tight horror film about racism directed by a TV comedian. It feels unusual, like an outlier. If it were a person, it'd be a "diversity hire" but very overqualified. And very successful. Jordan Peele worked hard and didn't throw away his chance here.)

If we accept that a more qualified woman should be hired over a less qualified man, and we accept that that's not happening in any way that looks like equality (Hollywood!), we have to accept that there is bias in the hiring process which would look a lot like this guy's manifesto about women being too "neurotic" to work at Google.

We have to push back against that bias rather than justify it. That might even look like we're giving "less qualified" candidates a chance -- but in practice it looks more like giving a qualified Oscar winning director (Patty Jenkins) a chance after 8 years of not.

If we're not talking about super physical/dangerous work, there's no physical justification for not hiring a woman -- and we should be very suspicious of those pretending there is. They are really just trying to justify the existing inequality they're comfortable with (the Republican mindset here), and a general culture which discourages anyone succeeding apart from rich/white/straight/male/etc.

I'm white/straight/male but not rich - penniless in fact - and I still get filtered out of the system almost entirely because of that last one, so I'm not going to stand up for that system.

We're disagreeing about how offensive this guy's ideas actually are, but I see them as evidence of a larger bias which -- if this guy is actually as bad as I personally think he is -- you would dislike too.

We shouldn't be afraid of trying to make the numbers more equal when they're so absurdly unequal right now. We need to move in a more equal direction. That's not forcing something -- the inequality we have now is forced by bias.

KG: et's talk about the real issue. I'm denied far more opportunities because I'm from a lower middle class family and have to earn everything I make, than I face as a woman in a male industry. Poverty offers far more challenges and discrimination than I will ever face from being a woman in this industry

But that's not really allowed. It's mostly that white men are oppressing me and stealing my opportunities. Well, that's only true when it comes to a system designed to keep poor people poor, not that I'm a woman in a man's industry.

In fact, being a woman has mostly proved advantageous.

EO: Look at you, Ms. MGTOW!

GG: Women comprised 7 percent of all directors working on the 250 highest-grossing domestic releases in 2016. Look at all those advantages you have! 14 percent of the advantages a man has. ;)

EO: I like Bigelow; she directs like a man. And Coppola pissed off blacks, so she gets my respect.

KG: EO, you're ridiculous.

GG: "Ridiculous" is a nice word for "racist." And true. Blocked.

Kristen, you'll get no argument from me that poverty is a huge gatekeeper keeping people out of the industry. I've dealt - badly - with that my entire life. But it's a man's industry - still - and one which protects sexual predators and abusers like Bill Cosby, Jimmy Saville, Chris Brown, Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Mel Gibson, etc etc etc.

Does saying "let's talk about the real issue" of income inequality mean that sexism, racism, and general bigotry aren't a problem? How about, they're all a problem?

Problems which are opposed by lefties, and thrown a parade by the right.

SB: I don't understand why it's not ok to acknowledge that the genders are different, but perfectly understandable that someone wants to identify as a different gender. If they are the same then why do people want to change genders, or have a sexual preference? It's not just replaceable genitals. duh.

KG: Seriously

GG: It's okay to acknowledge that genders (and races) are different, but not as an excuse for why you're not hiring someone, or giving them the same chance to succeed.

Being homosexual, transgender, any race other than white, or a woman have all previously been classified as mental illnesses and impairments by our gross society. There's always some excuse given, couched in pseudoscience. This guy says women are too "neurotic" and "anxious" and that therefore it's good that they're underrepresented in tech. That's not science, that's an excuse, and a dogwhistle about "hysterical" women.

First principles: a woman who is more qualified should be hired over a man who is less qualified, for the same position.

Replace both genders here with "anyone."

SB: ^agreed^ but I that wasn't the point of the Google screed. The point was that using metrics to measure your "success" in attracting and hiring, and further using those metrics as an excuse for not hiring people who don't fit the metric you are trying to boost, is not a fair practice as the metrics do not fit the talent pool from which you are hiring.

GG: Trying to come up with excuses, as this guy did, to argue why some people deserve less opportunities than the straight white male takes us down a very dark path, and there's a reason why neo nazis get very excited about those arguemnts.

The point of the Google manifesto may have been that the guy knew he was about to be fired, and if he claimed discrimination against him for being a white male, the Alt Right Neo Nazi crowd would give him a huge amount of money and worldwide fame. I don't know if that was his plan, but that is what happened.

And those people on Twitter who have to deal with Neo Nazis all day saw the Nazis' excitement about this guy providing arguments for them. Familiar sounding arguments, in fact.

SB: I read it, too, and I'm just not getting the same takeaways. Saying that statistically x is more likely to do (behavior) than y is not saying that all x is less than y because they (behavior). It is simply saying that they will be less represented in the pool. It also isn't saying that those in that do have certain traits should be purposely excluded. It is saying they are choosing to self exclude.

GG: He's arguing against diversity hires, specifically against women hires, and trying to justify why the industry is so male.

We can see just by the statistics that this isn't natural, but reflects a bias in the hiring process.

Less women want to get into film directing and coding, but not by THAT many. And that's because it's discouraged by society and these industries.

SB: Behavioral science isn't pseduoscience. It is backed up by tons of data - and really scary big data - especially recently. Places like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and so on, have tons of online behavioral data that they slice by every conceivable category - including gender, race, sexual orientation.

GG: In the footnotes he blames it all on communism. That communism is the reason anyone would want to hire a woman or person of color.

Cultural Marxism. There's some alt right dogwhistles here and no science that makes sense.

Using Google on this, 20 percent of engineering school graduates are women, yet women make up only 11 percent of practicing engineers. One in four female engineers leave the field after age 30, compared to only one in 10 male engineers.

That means more women want to be in the industry than are allowed to be in the industry, or are allowed to continue comfortably in the industry. And 11 percent is so far from equality that to argue against it is really dark stuff on his part.

Google is 70% male generally, for a big company. Now look at the executive level and who's really getting paid here.

If he's basically starting with the premise that white men are not given the same chances to succeed, he's not only wrong but justifying every kind of bigotry in very polite terms.

He was using firefighting and other dangerous professions as an excuse for why women are so underrepresented in this non dangerous profession -- and that's always a big red flag, among many red flags in this manifesto. Anything that's really into the concept of man as superhero and woman as "neurotic/anxious/othered."

SB: I think you are making a lot of assumptions based on the numbers. The only way to understand what is actually happening would be to poll the women who left and understand the reasons. And have those reasons ranked by importance.

KG: I think we could be obnoxious and say this is a lot of mansplaining on how women need help, but I'm not going to be that annoying.

GG: I was aware I was mansplaining from the start, but also that others in this thread were dropping MRA lingo, to which I'm always ready to be the antidote.

KG: I appreciate your desire for fairness and equity.

SB: What is MRA?

GG:It's like the KKK, except they hate women instead of non-white races. Although there is a lot of overlap with Alt-Right/Neo Nazis/etc.

MRA/redpill/MGTOW movement was started by old wife-beating divorced deadbeat dads who are mad about being asked to pay child support. But they have an army of dumb teenage kids who don't know better.

Google guy is of course, the new hero of that movement this week.

EO who I just blocked was dropping a lot of MRA lingo.

Google guy was using firefighting and other dangerous professions as an excuse for why women are so underrepresented in this non dangerous profession -- and that's always a big red flag, among many red flags in this manifesto. Anything that's really into the concept of man as superhero and woman as "neurotic/anxious/othered."

I spend a lot of time on Twitter so I already saw this play out between lefties and the "KKK except they hate women instead of racial minorities but also they hate racial minorities " types.

Just another day on Left Twitter tbh.

My argument is against forced inequality. We should all have more of a choice.

Saying that sexism, racism, and LGBTphobia is a problem does not mean that income inequality and the class system isn't a problem.

Activism for diversity is, and needs to be, intersectional.

These are all interconnected equality issues. The Left is fighting for, and arguing for, a push toward equality (which still recognizes our differences and ability to choose our own destinies), and the Right is fighting against that because they see our existing (and blatant) inequality as "the way things are" - often with pseudo intellectual excuses about how it's all "natural" like this Google guy. "Women should be even more underrepresented in tech because they're neurotic and not firefighters etc ..."

SB: Actually, I've been a far-left liberal my whole life, but in recent years, I think the left is on crack most of the time on this. We've mostly won this, but they are still fighting like it's 1968. Which means they keep getting more offended at shit that isn't offensive. microagressions!

GG: Take a closer look -- Trump won the white house, Neo Nazism has come back in a big way. There's no limit to how much Islam is hated here, and there's always a new punching bag. "Immigrants." "Mexicans." LGBT ....

Neo nazis like this Google Manifesto crap because it's so close to arguing that white straight males are superior ...

Arguing about our differences -- the original Nazis sterilized and killed poor people, minorities, "promiscuous women" .... you name it ....

And in 2017 you can't be a woman in tech on Twitter without a chorus of Neo Nazis telling you to kill yourself twenty times a day.

If you think the fight is won, it's because you're not on the battlefield.

Many those fighting now are transgender people, whose rights (and value as equal human beings) have certainly not been accepted by our society yet.

But, uh, we're a super racist, sexist, bigoted country rigged for the benefit of the rich, always have been. That fight is not over.

KG: come on. SB is on the fucking battlefield. If anyone know what it's like to be a woman in a man's world, she knows far better than you do. So maybe you should listen to your woman allies.

GG: How am I not listening? I'm here, and under normal circumstances on social media I spend a lot of time just listening.

KG, you said that income inequality - the problems of poverty - were more important and pressing. I agree with that, and that's not a problem that's settled. It's a problem that's getting exponentially worse. And it's all connected, in terms of a lack of equal opportunity for people.

That's not a problem that's going to be solved by compromise with the right and alt-right (as the manifesto argues) -- this country has already compromised -- Nor is it a problem that's going to be solved by worshipping wealth, as the GOP and centrist Democrats do.

There's a desire on the part of MRAs, redpillers, MGTOW, Neo Nazis, Alt Righters, to preserve gender roles at any cost (we're talking 50s, woman's place in the home gender roles) ....

This is resulting in women "in tech" getting constant harassment and threats on Twitter, and transgender people getting harassed and killed ....

There are a lot of battles out there that none of us have to fight --- but others do. The fight is not settled, and in places it's getting worse as young people unused to forced gender roles make themselves visible online.

OH: SB, are you saying it's a microagression that the left is offended or that microagressions are an example of how they find non-offensive things offensive?

GG: A microaggression becomes a problem when you face a thousand of them daily. Bigotry is not always flashing-lights obvious. It's subtle and systemic, as it is for 10 pages in this manifesto.

Sorry for writing my own manifesto in this post, but I read a lot of leftie Twitter and normally keep this bottled up inside.

But basically, people on the left aren't complaining over nothing -- they're pointing out people (like this Google dude) who come up with excuses to not hire women (or anyone else) and say "you're complaining about nothing." lol

It might not seem horrible when you just read this manifesto but when you hear the same thing spouted by neo nazis, and hear the same thing a lot, the dogwhistles really pile up and the subtext is pretty clear.

60 Year Old White Guy Voice: "This is very serious. Daytime television and this article I just read about the, uh, 'Tumbler thought police' have convinced me that teenage liberals are the real nazis"

I dislike the constant messaging in the media to get older folks to fear the young. Tumblr/Twitter callout culture can be toxic, certainly, but if you're criticizing it you need to understand it first. There's this article being shared which is just fearmongering, and it resulted in this conversation:

"Young-adult books are being targeted in intense social-media callouts, draggings, and pile-ons — sometimes before anybody’s even read them."

DE: Having been a young adult author of non-fiction biographies myself, I find this hitherto unknown trend quite frightening. Apparently, not all the hatred, anger and bigotry are on the streets of Charlottesville. It exists in this wondrous digital age of ours! ??

GG: This article is very misleading, I think intentionally so. Young people are informed and are speaking out against offensive material. To portray that as a terrifying, uninformed, unstoppable boogeyman is disingenuous, and this requires a more nuanced and understanding approach.

DE: MISLEADING!?!? YAs are doing it based not evidence but simple social media word-of-mouth,i.e. GOSSIP! I don't think it's disingenuous, at all. If anything, it's distressing.

GG: Apparently you know only the misrepresentation the author of this article is providing for you. There's a lot to be said about youth callout culture, but it needs to come from within, or from a place of understanding, rather than presenting them as a monstrous hivemind.

DE: There is a lot to be said for "Youth Callout Culture" and this article is saying it.

DE: Study it all you want, the very title you gave it is something foreign to logical thinking people. Who the hell needs youth call out culture to make decisions for individuals? Thinking for yourself. What a concept.

GG: This is a subject I know about. You're terrified of something you don't understand.

DE: Then I fail to see how you can make the comments you're making in the face of its contents. The author quotes sources and states facts. while you simply say its misleading.

GG: I don't have time to educate you. Or to fight back against "won't somebody be afraid of the children?"

DE: I don't need you to "educate" me on a post of my page. To infer such is extremely rude! This is a conversation ON MY PAGE! Clearly your defense of "youth callout culture" as you call it is something you are a proponent of, right up there with Nazi book burning and American blacklisting!

A SURPRISING AMOUNT OF PEOPLE: "I don't think we have to or need to tolerate the white nationalists' rhetoric. We do however have to allow them to peacefully assemble."

Me: No, we don't.

If you think this rhetoric has a place in peaceful society you've already made up your mind.

Hate speech is an announcement of intention to commit violence. Nazi hate speech is an announcement of intention to commit genocide on the world.

(And they weren't "peaceful" either day in Charlottesville by any definition. They were terrorizing the town just by being there, but they beat the shit out of people on the streets, carried guns and torches, killed Heather Heyer and hit about 15 people with a car.)

ALSO -- I know he "sounds reasonable" but if you don't have a problem with the Google Guy who wrote a manifesto against hiring women you probably ARE the Google Guy.

Basically you see the oppression of others as negotiable, as if we're just negotiating the terms. Tell me, what level of bigotry and inequality in our society is acceptable to you? Because personally as a white dude I want no part of any of this bullshit.

Damore, in a 10 page manifesto: "Women are underrepresented in tech because they're neurotic and anxious, and Google only wants to hire 'diversity' because they've been taken over by communist infiltrators."

A SURPRISING AMOUNT OF PEOPLE: "Ha ha, he's just telling it like it is!"

Damore: "I'm being fired for Telling the Truth! Time to get 60 thousand dollars from alt right hate groups! And speak to alt right extremists! And retweet and reblog ..."

I will never regret saying that Nazis should not be allowed to be Nazis in our country. Nor has Germany.

And bigots shouldn't be "heard out" and debated.

If you can't just condemn this shit like a decent person, then you're not one.

Too many people are willing to set the table and clear some space in our culture for open white supremacists -- and some dork who thinks he's a superhero of truth for saying Google shouldn't hire women.

Too many people are willing to have a debate and bring these ideas further into the mainstream as if they're worthwhile, legitimizing them.

How about nah.

P.S. The entire point of the Google manifesto was that he wanted people to argue and debate about his shitty ideas as if they were Important and Smart and Well Researched rather than just pulled out of his ass.

We seem to take the bait every time.

As for the Confederate flag, we should have banned it a long time ago.

Bigots want to feel like they're the majority. That everyone else thinks just like them. Providing consequences to their bigotry pushes it back into the dustbin of history where it belongs.

Let me repurpose, for liberal ears, a slogan of the right .... "Freedom Isn't Free."

If only we had some example of how allowing Nazis to march in our streets gets good people killed. If only we had some example from literally yesterday. If only.

Teens, twentysomethings and lefties in general have been warning about the rise of the neo nazi alt right for at least six years now. But nobody listens.

We still hear people saying, "Oh, what a nicely dressed young man appearing on that white supremacist Youtube channel. He just wants to discuss rational logical ideas about the inferiority of women, LGBT and non-white races and maybe the left are the REAL Nazis for saying his ideas are bad."

Spoiler: his ideas are bad and we turn him into a rich alt-celebrity by having this debate about them.

An alt-righter from /pol/ killed Heather Heyer in Charlottesville yesterday with his car, injuring dozens. Mobs of Nazis were beating people up on the streets the last couple days, carrying guns and torches.

What's it going to take for anyone to listen to those of us who know who these guys are?

"Anyone and everyone else who has been trying for years to warn folks until they were blue in the face is free to join me.

"I recognize that stating the obvious may not be constructive right now, hence my tongue-biting. But I ask you to reflect on this idea from this point forward: when those who are currently marginalized, those who were historically marginalized, and/or are specialists in relevant fields speak out about their lived reality and/or historical analysis and/or what they view as impending threats, BELIEVE THEM.

The problem with Hillary's book is the same as with her candidacy. Not only FOX News but pretty much the entire 24-hour cable news cycle, as a medium, was invented to oppose the Clintons and spread propaganda against them. It has worked on a lot of people, and there are a lot of people who blindly hate her, but for all of us, whoever you are, anything Hillary Clinton does is going to be opposed by a media shitstorm which is so, so, tiring.

She was always a flawed candidate representing the corporate, imperialist nature of the Democratic party. But mainly, a large swath of the country has been primed for twenty-five years to hate her beyond all reason, and we're all tired of the invented shitstorm that follows her wherever she goes. The right wing propaganda machine has made our politics a living hell.

Excerpts from Clinton's book are more petty and bitter than she showed publicly - confirming the worst about her - but I'm not too surprised that she couldn't tell the difference between legitimate criticism of her policies and the usual shitstorm of baseless attacks. There is so much to say, but it becomes hard to criticize Hillary, even at her worst, without sounding like the human-sized piles of shit that have been clogging up talk radio and cable news with lies for twenty-five years.

I hold back, but others will say what I won't. For a whole bunch of different reasons, Hillary Clinton makes all of us angry. Part of that reason is just because she makes other people angry. That's hard to deal with.

One reason Barack Obama won in 2008 was that he was a relatively new face on the political scene. This was before eight years of attacks and conspiracy theories from the worst people on the planet made Obama's presidency a complete pain in the ass for decent people.

I fully believe that most of our voters just want to be well informed about what's going on in the world, and instead they're being served propaganda. Not just on FOX, but from cable news in general, and of course online.

I don't know what the answer is, but right-wing propaganda has destroyed us as a populace, and unless we can discredit, dismantle and reduce the power of the propagandists we are over as a country. Under Trump, the bigotry and incompetence of the Republican party has been laid bare. And this may be a teachable moment to make right-wing media the laughing stock it deserves to be. Maybe. If we last that long.

MATT: Wow, America is addicted to endless war. It's never going to stop. We should make fun of that. Except we're Republicans.

TREY: Libertarians.

MATT: So we love war.

TREY: Officially we have no comment on whether we do or do not "love war" and anyway it's stupid, everything's stupid, asking questions is stupid, you're stupid. Your parents are stupid.

MATT: So we love war.

TREY: Unofficially.

MATT: So what do we hate?

TREY: Liberals. Women with opinions who we no longer find attractive.

MATT: So what if we wrote a song ...

TREY: I'm listening.

MATT: Making fun of America's military industrial complex and addiction to war ...

TREY: I'm no longer listening.

MATT: Except we blame it on ...

TREY: Women with opinions.

MATT: Yes! Your dumb parents who are unattractive women with opinions decide to invade a country.

TREY: That could happen and isn't just a misogynist meme.

MATT: We are satirists.

TREY: We are GENIUSES.

MATT: As two straight conservative white men making mediocre television I am ready to completely believe that we are geniuses.

TREY: We will get an Oscar nom.

MATT: This actually happens.

TREY: We will teach an entire generation of internet assholes that the problem isn't that America is run by psychopaths, but that the true evil is liberals and any woman who ever expresses an opinion about anything.

MATT: This will have no consequences whatsoever!

TREY: For us!

MATT: And if someday an unpopular woman runs for President against the world's worst man, and it's her that nobody trusts, she should have smiled more!

TREY: What an unlikely scenario!

MATT: But what's next? What if the next President is a conservative who invades Iraq for no clearly stated reason and plunges us into an endless war for the next two decades or more?